Following on from its investigation of spatialization processes from the perspective of actors, in the SFB 1199’s second phase the Research Area A asks more specifically about the special role of spatial entrepreneurs. In this way, we want to further strengthen the intentional dimension of spatialization and the creation of spatial formats that differ from spatialization practices, whose possibly unintended effect are spatial formats. By selecting case studies that cover points and periods from over two centuries and that cover such diverse regions such as Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Africa, and Central, East, and South Asia, the Research Area has a sufficient empirical basis for theory formation while avoiding the danger of Eurocentrism.

Research Area B covers the historical development of respatialization up to the immediate present and is thereby concerned with the analysis of rise and decay, detachment and legacies of spatial orders, as well as with the entanglements and closures of spatial orders. The projects tend to move closer to the present, project B1 starts in the 19th century, while all other projects take a look at the 20th or 21st centuries. These projects cover colonial empires spanning various continents as well as transregional configurations of conflict, infrastructures, and medical treatment.

Research Area C focuses on the investigation of imaginations of spatialization in a world-regional comparative setting and through transregional interdependence analyses. In addition, imaginations of alternative spatial orders are presented as a response to the development of global interdependencies and flows, which can also undermine the legitimacy of existing spatializations. In such processes, the comparison between processes in different regions of the world has a decisive role. This holds true not only for the individual projects that deal with geographical societies or maps and atlases in very different countries, but also for the Research Area as whole, with its study of transregional interactions through literary imaginations and digital technologies in Asia and Africa.